Industry players face challenges in social-acceptability of coal-fired plants

MANILA, Philippines - Putting up coal-fired power plants in the Philippines continues to face the challenge of social acceptability due mainly to concerns on coal plants’ environmental impact, industry players said yesterday at the Coal Business and Policy Forum in Makati.

In his speech, former Energy undersecretary and chairman of the Philippine Chamber of Coal Mines Inc. Rufino Bomasang said putting up coal-fired power plants remains a great business opportunity but continues to face widespread opposition among environmentalists.

“Coal-fired power generation, however, continues to face the challenge of social acceptability due mainly to concerns about its environmental impacts, real or exaggerated. Undoubtedly, clean coal technologies (CCTs) have already substantially reduced the emission of pollutants to levels approaching those of natural gas, the cleanest of the fossil fuels. Carbon capture and sequestration technologies are also being developed and their deployment should substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coal fired power generation,” Bomasang said.

The former energy official said coal is still the least-cost fuel for baseload power generation due to its worldwide acceptance.

“Understandably therefore, most of the major power plants being built in the Philippines are coal-fired, as it is in the world’s two largest developing countries (e.g. China, India) and in neighboring Asean member countries (e.g. Indonesia and Thailand).  Even developed countries in the region (e.g. Japan, South Korea) in fact continue to put up coal-fired power plants,” he said.

Bomasang said industry players and the government must address the concerns raised by environmentalists to pave the way for the opening of more mine mouth power plants using untapped coals. These potential plants are in Cagayan, Isabela, Surigao, Davao Oriental and South Cotabato, he said.

“In these areas, I estimate that the combined measured and indicated coal resources are sufficient to supply at least another 2000 megawatts of mine mouth power generating capacity,” Bomasang said.

He said coal fired power generation in the Philippines can continue to be a mainstay in providing competitively priced electricity, provided that players can effectively address social acceptability issues.

 Coal fired power plants in the country currently account for 43 percent of total supply, said Rino Abad, director of the Energy Resource Development Bureau. Other energy sources are oil, natural gas and renewable energy.

Environmental group Greenpeace, for one, continues to oppose the construction of coal-fired plants.

It said in a recent report on coal that at least 45 new coal-fired power plants will become operational in the Philippines beginning the next five to six years, a development that would increase the Philippines’ carbon dioxide emissions by over 64.4 to 79.8 million metric tons a year.

It said the Aquino administration’s reliance on coal-fired power plants puts the country’s climate at risk, which in turn could cost the economy, according to a report on coal’s impact on climate change in the Philippines.